I love service stations. They are an oasis of wonder in a tar macadam desert. They provide us with succour and entertainment and toilet facilities (occasionally brightened with plastic pint glasses filled with dead flowers). Increasingly they also provide decent coffee which is an delight to any weary driver or caffeine addict.
I get the same sense of excitement when approaching a service station as I did when I was a child, except now I am an adult I don't have to scream "Can we stop at the services? Please? Can we dad?" because I am now in charge of the car and thus make the decisions myself.
Evenso I still do sometimes scream that. And occasionally I deny myself the pleasure. And then I sulk.
However, there are things I don't like about service stations (you already know my feelings about Pick 'N' Mix and I'd like to thank you all for following my instructions to destroy them- I am being sarcastic). The main problem I have with service station (and it's something that makes me hate the thing I would otherwise love unquestioningly) is the exorbitant prices that they any wont to charge.
The owners of service stations have a commercial, capitalist greed that would make the creators of the Titanic exhibition blanche and say "Steady on mate, there's no need to take the piss".
I was heading to Bristol with my friends Ben and Mackay to attend a wedding celebration. We were in high spirits. It felt like we had gone back ten years to the days of our youth when road trips to parties in other cities were not such a rare occurence.
We stopped in the Moto services near Reading to get a coffee. I also took the opportunity to urinate. Such is the wondrous diversity of the service station.
Mackay fancied a piece of fruit, but was not prepared to pay the 59 pence required for an apple. However, he was not to be put off. He was sure he could find something that would satisfy his mild craving, whilst not stretch his pocket too far.
We bought our take-away coffees in the cafeteria. Mackay was trying to gather together his milk and sugar and stirrers and had not yet decided whether coffee would be his only purchase, or whether he would find some food to ease the slight pang in his stomach.
The lady at the till said "Can you pay over here, sir?" Mackay was not ready to pay yet and told her so. She made a similar request to him and a couple of other men, maybe two or three more times, and Mackay found her insistence rude. Being Mackay (which he, and only he is) her abrupt urgency just made him want to take his time even more.
He put his coffee on the counter, but he was still not ready to pay. "What is that?" asked the woman.
"It's a coffee" said Mackay, accurately, but unhelpfully.
"What kind of coffee?" she barked rudely.
Mackay did not answer.
"Is it a latte or a cappuchino or....?
"It's a black coffee, an Americano," Mackay eventually admitted, "But hold on a minute I'm not ready to pay yet."
He had hatched a plan that would both provide him with revenge and also with a small piece of fruit that would surely be cheaper than 59p. Around the cafeteria were baskets of peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms and other such rustic produce. It wasn't clear whether these were for sale or decoration. One presumed the latter. It was unlikley that anyone would want to eat a raw pepper. However it was plausible (though unlikely) that someone might like to eat a tomato.
Mackay clearly decided that this might be the fruit of compromise (yes, a tomato is a fruit, as any idiot knows). He also admitted later that he was trying to be deliberately difficult to annoy the unfriendly and insistent old woman. He knew that she would find a single tomato difficult to price.
She rang up the coffee on the till. It was under two pounds, not too pricey. You might pay the same in a High St coffee place. Not that that's not a bit expensive for a coffee, but at least the service station wasn't taking the piss.
She then looked at the tomato and then looked at Mackay quizzically. Mackay smiled. His plan to get the old lady back for her minor rudeness was coming to literal fruition.
"How much is a tomato?" the lady called across to her colleague. There was no reply. "Sorry I don't know the price for a tomato," she said to a beaming Mackay. He knew she wouldn't know. He was fighting the system like a two modern day Robin Hoods.
The lady went over to her colleague to confer. She came back and rung up the tomato. Ben claims he saw it come up on the till saying "Tomato" with its individual price. The price of a tomato was in the system. It had been priced by whoever sets the price. Not by the justifiably annoyed old lady.
The total came to something over three pounds.
"Three pounds?" queried Mackay, "So how much was the tomato?"
"One pound, nine," said the lady.
"One pound, nine? That's rather a lot for one tomato isn't it?"
The old woman did not reply.
"I don't want it for one pound, nine," said Mackay, not unreasonably and offered to return it to its display. The price of the tomato was discounted. Mackay paid for his coffee and left.
How can Moto justify charging £1.09 for a single tomato. It's not as if the woman was trying to get Mackay back. The tomato price was computerised and pre-ordained. Someone had sat down and thought, "how much can we get for a single tomato? I think 109 pence is probably the maximum." It's a very specific figure.
I think that that is taking the piss on a whole new level. And in fact we should probably have tried to have them done under some kind of trade law, as a sign by the apples clearly said "Fruit 59p" and as we all know, a tomato is a fruit. So even if you accept that 59p is a fair price for a bit of fruit (which it isn't) then how can they justify a further 50p in price for a very small bit of fruit that you would feel a bit miffed about paying 20p for anywhere else in the world?
Moto are evil. Pure evil.
Mackay admitted that whilst returning the tomato he has considered the idea of merely pocketing instead. I think in such a case he would have been more than justified. And if he'd been caught he should have insisted in being tried in the highest court in the land. Then would all the people see that Moto had the audacity to charge £1.09 for a tiny tomato. The populace would have been indignant. There would have been revolution and we would live in a world where service stations would charge a fair price for their wares (which took into account a small increase in price due to the difficulty of delivering stock and staff to a usually remote location and where therefore a single tomato - which was really only there for display in any case- might retail at a maximum of 30p. But only if it was a really nice tomato. And someone gave you a hand job while you were eating it.)
Oh service stations of this land. Why do you reward my love and devotion with such selfishness and cruelty? Why do I return to you again and again despite the lessons and indignities of the past? When will you reward my love with the kindness and returned affection and joy that is all that I crave in this world?
Ben also paid £1.89 for a pack of lemon bonbons that turned out to be so hard in the centre that they were practically inedible.
Why do you reward our love with tooth damage?
Later at dinner I noticed a quarter tomato in my salad. I said to Mackay, "I'll let you have that for 25p!"
We all laughed. But also both Ben and Mackay appreciated my generosity. I was after all giving him a two and a quarter pence discount on the Moto price.
By such small gestures we may be able to undercut the service stations and bring their greedy owners to their knees. But only if we work together. Unlike with the pick n mix thing from before.
